What to do after crash when Automatic Repairs are not working?

Our primary computer, a Dell XPS 8960 (2024) running Windows 11 Pro 25H2, crashed late on 27 August after I restarted it (I did not verify the specific need for restarting, e.g., a particular Windows update). The following message appeared on a black screen, and I’ve seen it several times while trying repairs:


The Dell’s boot drive (C:) is a 512GB SSD (M.2, PCIe NVMe); and the storage drive (D:) is a 2TB HDD (7200 RPM, SATA). I don’t know if I can get V2/DM logs unless I can find them via the Command Prompt. Over-clocking is disabled.

In attempting many repairs, there have been no clear indications that any of the Microsoft “Automatic Repair” options have worked, and many indications they have not worked, e.g., “failed,” “did not complete successfully,” “We ran into a problem…,” etc. Details follow.

Automatic Repair: “Your PC did not start correctly…”
* Selecting “Restart” did not correct the problem. (I have not gotten to Safe Mode…)

Automatic Repair: “Advanced Options”
* Selecting “Continue…to Windows 11” did not correct the problem.
* Selecting “Turn off your PC” did not correct the problem.
* Selecting “Use a device” did not correct the problem.
-- Note: This option showed “a USB drive” and “recovery DVD” as possible devices, but only the NICs (IPV4 & IPV6) were shown when “Use a device” was selected.
* Selected “Troubleshoot” to continue.

Automatic Repair: “Troubleshoot”
* Point-in-time Restore: “No restore point available. Turn point-in-time restore on in Settings… ErrorCode: 0x80004005”
* Reset this PC (aka reinstall Windows): Selected “Keep my files.” I tried both download from the cloud and local reinstall via USB drive that has Windows installation media generated from a Microsoft download on our laptop. The Dell black screen showed “Resetting this PC n%” but eventually switched to the blue “Reset this PC” screen that showed, “There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made.”
* Factory Image Restore: I have not tried this option yet.

Automatic Repair: “Troubleshoot” – “Advanced options”
* Startup Repair: The Dell black screen showed “Diagnosing your PC,” then the blue Startup Repair page showed,
“Startup Repair couldn’t repair your PC. Press “Advanced options” to try other options to repair your PC or “Shut down” to turn off your PC.
Log file: D:\WINDOWS\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt”
-- Note: The “Advanced options” option pointed back to the same “Advanced Options” menu page shown above.
-- Note: Windows is loaded on the C drive of this computer. The D drive is a separate drive we use for data, although the Command Prompt function shows it as “D:”
(see note below for more information about the C & D drives and the Logfiles folder).
* Startup Settings: When restarting “to change Windows option,” I have not been able to get into Safe Mode, including via #4 or F4, #5 or F5, or #6 or F6 in this option.
The process returns to the blue BitLocker recovery key window by way of a similar window as though nothing was selected.
* Command Prompt: Ran CHKDSK, which showed a variety of results:
-- “The shadow copy provider had an unexpected error while trying to process the specified operation.”
-- “The volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk might report errors when no corruption is present.”
-- “Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure… 0 bad file records processed.”
-- “Stage 2: Examining file name linkage… 0 unindexed files scanned…”
-- “Stage 3: Examining security descriptors… Data attribute verification: …Errors detected in the uppercase file.”
-- “Windows has checked the file system and found problems… 0 KB in bad sectors.”
-- “Unable to obtain a handle to the event log.”
-- Ran CHKDSK /r, but the result shown was “Cannot lock current drive” and “Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.”
-- Note: Checked the Windows\System32\Logfiles directory (the C drive is shown as “X:”); there is no Srt directory, nor SrtTrail.txt in the Logfiles directory.
The D drive we know is shown as “C:” in this situation, and our data folders appear intact (at least at the top level).
-- Note: The connected USB with Win11 installation media is shown as “E:” and “ESD USB”
* Uninstall Updates: Neither the latest quality update nor the latest feature update would be successfully uninstalled.
-- Uninstall latest quality update: After initial “uninstalling…,” the process stated,
“We ran into a problem and won’t be able to uninstall the latest quality update of Windows.”
-- Uninstall latest feature update: The process stated,
“We ran into a problem and won’t be able to uninstall the latest feature update of Windows. Try resetting your PC instead (Troubleshoot > Reset this PC).”
(That didn’t work either; see above.)
* UEFI Firmware Settings: I did not see anything I should change, but I could have missed something.
* System Restore: This process showed a couple of identical date/time options (8/27/2026 2:23:32 AM) for the type “Windows Update” from which to choose.
However, after confirming the restore point, the process “failed while restoring the registry from the restore point.
An unspecified error occurred during System Restore. (0x80070003)”.

Other attempts to make corrections and other indications:
* I was able to boot from the USB drive with Windows installation media, via pressing F12 when turning on power to the computer. Initial indications were positive: Select language and keyboard settings, Select setup option: “Repair my PC” (vs “Install Windows 11,” and “your files, apps, and settings will be deleted”). But then nothing else appeared to happen except “Diagnosing…” and the reappearance of the BitLocker recovery key window. (I’ve lost count of the times I have entered the recovery key.)
* I can get into the BIOS (via F2 on boot) and was able to reset the boot options to use the thumb drive, but that was not successful either. The USB light flashed but the monitor showed (briefly) “No media present.” I returned the boot order to what it was.
* I also was able to run Dell’s Diagnostics via pressing F12 when booting. Interestingly, both the Quick Test and the Advanced Test completed successfully, although the results shown were high-level: “Pre-boot diagnostics test passed. No issues were found.”
* I have seen several instances of “Undoing changes” on the black Dell screen, but have not seen any differences from changes that supposedly were undone.

What do you think and/or suggest? I have not found a way out of this Automatic Repair loop.

#####
please check the 'reliability monitor' to check for recent errors.
control panel > security and maintenance > maintenance > reliability monitor

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then check 'problem devices'
system tools > system information > components > problem devices

#####
it also maybe worth while doing a check disk

all of which should show any recent errors or events.
best of luck Steve ..

To remove read-only status using the command line;


Then run chkdsk (appropriate drive letter): /r/f/x

I would consider disabling Bitlocker too, to save having to keep typing in the long code while troubleshooting;


When you boot from a rescue disk or Windows boot disk, the drive letter for the live system is always X: and your installed drive's letters may not be what you expect, so bear that in mind

This article is full of useful info - Advanced troubleshooting for Stop error 7B or Inaccessible_Boot_Device

Also there are people on this forum with far greater knowledge of the boot process than me so hopefully someone will chime in

First this I do when this happens;

“Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart.
We’ll restart for you.
Stop code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE (0x7B).”

I do an F8 and see if it will boot into the safe mode, if not, I pull the drive, and boot up with it as a slave drive in another PC and see if disk checking might fix it. You will probably have a 50/50 chance it will fix it, but that's better than no chance.

Please run the Sea Tools bootable Long generic test > take pictures > post share links



Boot to the BIOS > search for RAID/ACHI/IDE > take pictures > post share links

JeFtFotF
Thank you all for your assistance. Here are my results thus far. I plan to continue in the morning.

XxXxX
Please check the 'reliability monitor' to check for recent errors.
control panel > security and maintenance > maintenance > reliability monitor
…
it also maybe worthwhile doing a check disk
…

JeFtFotF
I did not find a way from the Command Prompt to open the Control Panel.
I ran chkdsk but got mixed results, including not being able to write to the disk.

Hughbris
To remove read-only status using the command line;
Code:
diskpart
list disk
select disk <appropriate disk number goes here>
attributes disk clear readonly

JeFtFotF
I entered these diskpart commands but got a disappointing result for “Disk 1”:
“DiskPart failed to clear disk attributes.”

RD Mercer
…I do an F8 and see if it will boot into the safe mode, if not, I pull the drive, and boot up with it as a slave drive in another PC…

JeFtFotF
I pressed F8 and other keys on successive attempts to get to Safe Mode during boot but none worked. I don’t know what is causing this. We have a laptop, on which I am typing, but I don’t know how to connect a drive as a slave to a laptop.

zbook
Please run the Sea Tools bootable Long generic test > take pictures > post share links
SeaTools | Seagate US
Boot to the BIOS > search for RAID/ACHI/IDE > take pictures > post share links

JeFtFotF
I have not seen a way to download a software tool in the XPS in its current constrained environment. The tool looks interesting and I will read more of the documentation and load it onto our laptop, but how do I load it and use it in the Automatic Repair loop on the XPS?

More to come…

What to do after crash when Automatic Repairs are not working​

JeFtFotF said:

What to do after crash when Automatic Repairs are not
* hoose.
However, after confirming the restore point, the process “failed while restoring the registry from the restore point.
An unspecified error occurred during System Restore. (0x80070003)”.

Other attempts to make corrections and other indications:
* I was able to boot from the USB drive with Windows installation media, via pressing F12 when turning on power to the computer. Initial indications were positive: Select language and keyboard settings, Select setup option: “Repair my PC” (vs “Install Windows 11,” and “your files, apps, and settings will be deleted”). But then nothing else appeared to happen except “Diagnosing…” and the reappearance of the BitLocker recovery key window. (I’ve lost count of the times I have entered the recovery key.)
* I can get into the BIOS (via F2 on boot) and was able to reset the boot options to use the thumb drive, but that was not successful either. The USB light flashed but the monitor showed (briefly) “No media present.” I returned the boot order to what it was.
* I also was able to run Dell’s Diagnostics via pressing F12 when booting. Interestingly, both the Quick Test and the Advanced Test completed successfully, although the results shown were high-level: “Pre-boot diagnostics test passed. No issues were found.”
* I have seen several instances of “Undoing changes” on the black Dell screen, but have not seen any differences from changes that supposedly were undone.

What do you think and/or suggest? I have not found a way out of this Automatic Repair loop.

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